


with a calm professionalism

by laylaherondale



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Eldest Curses Series - Cassandra Clare, The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Book 1: The Red Scrolls of Magic, Canon Compliant, F/F, First Dates, Missing Scene, Post-TRSOM, Strangers to Lovers, World Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:29:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laylaherondale/pseuds/laylaherondale
Summary: Aline had not come to Rome with the intention of going on dates with pretty girls, just as she had not come to Rome with the intention of shutting down an evil cult alongside a warlock, his Shadowhunter boyfriend, and a half-faerie with the face of an angel and the fighting skills to match.It had justhappened.
Relationships: Helen Blackthorn/Aline Penhallow
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

Aline Penhallow generally liked to think of herself as a confident person.

She was a Shadowhunter, for goodness’s sake. She stared death in the face every time she geared up and took to the streets. She knew more ways to kill a man than she could count on both her hands. She had never once backed down from a fight, she had certainly never held her tongue when she had something to say, and she rarely apologized for hurting people’s feelings. No matter what life threw at her, Aline prided herself on remaining cool and unruffled and sufficiently snarky at all times.

But in this moment, weaving her way through a busy street in one of the most tourist-heavy cities in Europe, she was starting to wonder if she had finally reached her limit.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she had gotten herself into this situation, she thought as she pulled up in front of a small restaurant and wiped her hands on her jeans, taking a deep breath in a fruitless attempt to steady her nerves. She had not come to Rome with the intention of going on dates with pretty girls, just as she had not come to Rome with the intention of shutting down an evil cult alongside a warlock, his Shadowhunter boyfriend, and a half-faerie with the face of an angel and the fighting skills to match. It had just _happened_ , and Aline had absolutely no idea what she was doing here.

Here, about to meet up with the pretty girl from yesterday. The pretty girl that she had _kissed_ and _asked out_. The pretty girl who was confident and unashamed of her sexuality and entirely too cool for Aline, who had barely been out of the closet for a month and still felt like something of a fraud when it came to dating girls.

She tossed her head back in an attempt to appear cool and confident and not at all like she was about to do the scariest thing she had ever done in a life that had, quite frankly, already put her in far too many scary situations. Then she pushed the glass door open, and stepped into the restaurant.

Her gaze immediately swept over the tables, looking for curly blond hair, and when she found her, waving excitedly and gesturing to the empty seat across from her, Aline’s stomach did a flip. Her knees felt weak.

She could do this.

It was only a date.

Only her first date, ever, with anyone, at the tender young age of eighteen years old. God, she knew people who had gotten _married_ at eighteen. This was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous. People went on dates all the time, and they didn’t fall through the floor or burst into flames or embarrass themselves so horrifically that their date just up and left. It wasn’t a big deal. It didn’t have to be a big deal.

She could do this.

Wiping her palms on her clothing again and schooling her face into a smile, she made her way across the shop and slid into her seat.

“Hey, gorgeous,” said Helen, beaming at her from across the table. “For a minute there, I was worried I’d been stood up.”

“God, no.” Aline laughed. “You caught me trying to act cool by showing up late.” _And spending way too much time trying to calm myself down so I wouldn’t embarrass myself_.

“Ah.” Helen winked at her. “Well, stop trying to be cool. You’re already way out of my league.”

Aline smiled and ducked her head to hide what was surely an embarrassing blush. This was the thing about Helen, she thought. She was already the most beautiful, most lively, most interesting person Aline had ever met, and she had the absolute _audacity_ to sit in front of Aline looking like _that_ , and call her gorgeous.

It was entirely unfair.

Helen’s hair was unbound, just like it had been yesterday, and Aline didn’t know why it was so distracting but it just _was_. She couldn’t stop staring at it, couldn’t stop thinking about how it was wavy and long and yet fine and soft as silk, and how nice it had felt to run her fingers through it yesterday. She watched a lock of it fall down into Helen’s face as she looked down at the menu, the corner of her mouth quirking up just so.

Aline realized that she had barely said anything since entering the restaurant, and desperately tried to come up with something, anything to say.

“Do you know what you’re getting?” she said at the same time as Helen said “have you been to this place before?”

They both laughed, and Aline looked down at her own menu without really seeing any of it. She cleared her throat, acutely aware of the fact that her face was absolutely burning.

“I’ve been a few times,” she answered. “The coffee is good.”

Helen hummed in response. “And the food?”

Aline frowned, suddenly wondering if she should have checked ahead of time to see how faerie-friendly this place was. What did Helen even _eat_? Had Aline already messed things up by bringing her here? Nothing on this menu looked anything like the stuff she had seen served at the few downworlder-friendly restaurants she had been to.

She wondered, suddenly, if she should have done research about faeries before this date. Where, though? Everything she knew about faeries, she had learned in a textbook, and a few hours of talking to Helen had already completely disproven everything she had learned from those textbooks, just as meeting Simon Lewis had made her rethink her education about vampires and meeting Magnus Bane had done the same to her knowledge of warlocks. She was starting to suspect that the Nephilim didn’t actually know that much about downworlders.

Which posed a huge problem for her. Where was the handbook on dating faeries? How was she supposed to know things like which restaurants to take them to?

“What do faeries even eat?” she blurted out before she could think about it too much. “I didn’t think to check-”

She broke off as she caught the supremely unimpressed look Helen was giving her.

“Oh god, that was offensive, wasn’t it?”

This was _exactly_ what she had been afraid of. She thought back to all the snide comments she had heard about her own heritage - which often had to do with the kind of food she ate, or at least the kind of food people assumed all Chinese people ate. She had never appreciated those comments.

And she had just made exactly that kind of comment to her date.

She really was an idiot, wasn’t she?

Helen was regarding her with one eyebrow raised, her mouth tilting up just slightly at the corner.

“I am so sorry,” said Aline. “I-”

“It’s fine,” Helen interrupted, holding her hand up. “Really. I hear that stuff all the time.”

“That doesn’t make it okay,” she responded forcefully. “I- I hardly know anything about downworlders, but I really do want to learn. Honestly.”

Helen smiled softly. She reached up to tuck her hair behind a pointed ear. Images rose up, unbidden, in Aline’s mind: severed faerie ears, displayed behind glass in the basement of the Penhallow manor. _Spoils of war_ , her grandfather had told her proudly. _They're illegal now, of course, but the Penhallows had quite the collection back in the day_ _._ She felt sick to her stomach.

“Thanks,” Helen said. “I appreciate it.”

Helen looked down at her menu, then, and cleared her throat. “I can’t believe I’m in Italy and the restaurant doesn’t even have pasta,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Everything I know about this country is a lie.”

Aline exhaled in relief. The sooner they could move on from this topic, the better.

“There’s a place just down the street with the best spaghetti you’ll ever try in your life,” she offered. “I’ve been five times already.”

“Do you want to go there tonight?” Helen’s tone was completely matter-of-fact. Aline looked up, taken aback.

“After what I just said to you?” Did Helen even _know_ about her family’s history? Aline wondered. Surely she must. Everyone knew there was only one way for a Shadowhunter family to gain as much wealth as Aline’s had.

Helen raised an eyebrow again. “Is that a no?”

“Of course it’s a yes,” she replied, grinning, “I’m just surprised.”

“Oh, please. Have you seen yourself?”

Aline had just taken a sip of her water. She choked, and started coughing. Before she had a chance to come up with a response, the waitress was there, saying something in Italian that Aline obviously couldn’t understand. Helen was looking at her expectantly from across the table, and it took Aline a moment to realize the other girl was waiting for her to translate.

Right. Because she had been living in Italy for weeks.

And she probably should have picked up on some of the language by now.

Blushing, Aline pointed to what she wanted to order, muttered the Italian word for _please_ , then closed her menu and handed it over to the waitress as Helen absolutely butchered the pronunciation of the sandwich she wanted, but did it with such confidence that the waitress was utterly charmed and not at all offended. She took their menus and swept away with a smile, and Helen shot Aline a triumphant smirk from across the table.

“And _that_ ,” she said, folding her hands daintily on the table, “is how it’s done.”

Aline smiled and ducked her head down, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. She felt jumpy, worried about saying the wrong thing and messing everything up. Helen just seemed so _confident_ , so comfortable in a country where she didn’t even speak the language. Aline was used to being the confident one. This role reversal was making her head spin.

By the angel, she loved women.

She couldn’t believe she had waited so long to do this.

“If only my parents could see me now,” she sighed.

Helen took a sip of water, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “I can’t possibly imagine why the Consul might not approve of me dating her daughter.”

“What’s not to love?” Aline mused aloud. “Half downworlder. A girl. Met you on my travel year.”

“And a Blackthorn” Helen added. “Don’t forget about that.”

Aline frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”

She racked her brain for anything she might have heard about the Blackthorns. Old family, she remembered. Close ties to the Lightwoods and the Herondales. Ran the Institute in Los Angeles. Surely she would have heard about them if they were really that bad?

Helen grinned. “Our motto is literally ‘a bad law is no law.’”

“Oh my god.” 

“Having second thoughts?” she teased.

“My mother would absolutely not approve of you,” Aline agreed, then winked. “Good thing I don’t care what she thinks.”

“And you say you're not cool.”

They laughed, and descended into silence. This was nice, Aline thought. Helen was still kind of terrifying in how confident and put-together she seemed, but she was still funny and easy to talk to, and she must like Aline just fine or she wouldn’t have invited her on another date tonight.

A part of her still couldn’t quite believe this was real. Had she actually asked this girl on a date? Was she really on that date right now? Was this actually going well? A few months ago, this would have been completely unthinkable. She had to resist the urge to pinch herself.

“Can I ask you something?” Helen asked. She was regarding her with interest, leaning her chin on her hand and tilting her head to the side, her mess of blonde hair spilling over one shoulder.

“Of course,” Aline responded without missing a beat.

“Why are you here?”

“Here, as in…”

She waved her hand to indicate their surroundings. “Rome. Italy. Europe. Not Idris. Your mom just got sworn in as Consul. I figured you’d want to stay in Alicante for a bit.”

Aline exhaled. Helen was remarkably perceptive. They were less than halfway through their first date, and she had already identified the thing that had been weighing on Aline since the day she had left home. Were you supposed to talk about these kinds of things on first dates? she wondered. She didn’t know any of the rules. But then again, maybe there weren’t any rules when you were the Consul’s daughter and your date was a half-faerie girl from a rival family.

“Things are weird,” she admitted with a sigh. “I came out to my parents right after the war.”

Helen winced. “I take it they’re weren’t happy about it?”

She shrugged. How to explain the situation? The way her dad had tried his very best to avoid the topic, as if it was some shameful secret he’d rather forget. The disappointment in his eyes when a family friend had brought up their new grandchild. Her mom’s attempts to be supportive when she clearly had no idea how to act around her own daughter.

“They weren’t happy,” she said at last. “They weren’t mad. Things are just weird. I had to get away for a bit.”

Helen regarded her thoughtfully. “I might know something about that,” she mused aloud.

Aline raised her eyebrows. “Do you parents know about you?”

“Dad does. Mom’s dead.”

“Oh.” This was the second time Aline had accidentally said something offensive, and she was starting to worry that her habit of talking before thinking was going to get her into trouble. “That’s awful. I can’t imagine.”

The waitress arrived, then, this time carrying plates of food. Aline’s pizza smelled amazing, and her mouth was watering just looking at it.

Helen took a bite of her sandwich and moaned theatrically, her eyes closed. Aline blushed and tried to distract herself by turning her attention to her meal.

“Alright, it may not be pasta, but that’s _good._ ”

Aline nodded in agreement, her mouth full of food. They ate in silence for a few minutes, both of them savouring their meals. The restaurants in Italy _never_ disappointed.

“It happened two years ago,” Helen blurted out, staring down at her plate. “Right after the baby was born. Cancer.” She shrugged. “Thought you should know that about me.”

“I had no idea.”

“Well, now you do.”

Aline didn’t know what to say. She looked down at her food. Took another bite of pizza. Finished off her water.

“I’m sorry,” said Helen after an awkward pause. “I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

“No! No, it’s fine! I just... can’t imagine what that’s like.” She barely knew Helen, but the other girl had always struck her as so carefree, so eternally happy, so lively. Despite her issues with her mother, she couldn’t imagine losing her. She couldn’t imagine being that happy after a tragedy of that scale.

Not, she chided herself, that she had any idea how she would handle that situation, or was in any position to judge someone else on how they handled it.

“It’s kind of why I left home,” Helen admitted, swirling the last of her water around in her glass.

“Really?”

She shrugged. Aline was starting to suspect that was something she did when she was uncomfortable. She saw a blush start to rise on the girl’s cheeks.

“When you’re the eldest of seven, and you lose a parent, you have to step up. I spent two years acting as a mother to those kids, and it’s shitty, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m eighteen, you know? I should be out seeing the world, figuring out who I am away from my family. Not raising my siblings.”

“And have you? Figured out who you are?”

The corner of Helen’s mouth tilted up in a smile. “I’m working on it.”

Aline grinned. Maybe she and Helen had more in common than she had initially thought.

Somehow, she managed to keep up a conversation without completely embarrassing herself between bites of food. She asked, somewhat tentatively, what Helen’s siblings were like, and knew instantly that it had been the right call. Helen absolutely lit up, if it was even possible for a girl who shone so brightly to light up. Aline learned the names Mark and Julian and Ty and Livvy and Dru and Tavvy, and wished her family was anywhere near as interesting as Helen’s sounded. All she had was her parents, and. Well.

_Well._

Helen reached across the table to take her hand, playing with her fingers and sending sparks all the way up Aline’s arms. 

“I still can’t believe I’m on a date with the consul’s daughter,” she admitted.

“I can’t believe I’m on a date with a _girl_ ,” Aline laughed.

Helen raised an eyebrow, her mouth tilting up at the corners. “So I’m your first girl, huh?”

“This is my first date,” she admitted.

Helen’s eyes went wide. “I’m honoured.”

Aline bit her lip around a smile. “I’m sorry if I’m nervous.”

Much to Aline’s surprise, the faerie girl grinned and tightened her hold on her hand. “Oh please, don’t be. I’ve been freaking out about this all day and I’ve spent the whole date babbling about myself and you must be _so_ bored-”

And then they were both laughing at themselves and at each other because they were both idiots and first dates were always awkward.

“So,” Helen said around a mouthful of sandwich, “was that your first kiss, then?”

Aline smiled. “My first with a girl.”

Helen’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, now I have to know the story. Who’s the lucky guy?”

“You’ll never guess.”

Helen put down her sandwich. “Oh my god, it was someone famous, wasn’t it?”

Aline took a bite of pizza.

“He _was_ famous! You’re killing me here!”

She waited for her answer, meal completely abandoned. Aline took her time chewing her own food, enjoying the suspense. She swallowed. Cleared her throat. Paused dramatically.

“It was Jace Lightwood.”

Helen’s jaw dropped. 

“Aline!”

She smirked. “Impressed?”

“I don’t even know what to think!”

Aline shrugged nonchalantly. “It was back when he thought he and Clary were siblings. I wanted to figure out if I liked guys, so I kissed him.”

“And?”

“I didn’t like it.”

Helen gaped at her. “Holy shit, I’m on a date with someone who kissed Jace Lightwood and didn’t even like it.”

They laughed and returned to their meals, and Aline’s nerves completely dissipated. No matter what dumb or offensive stuff she said, Helen had this way of talking and listening that made her feel like the coolest, most interesting person in the world.

Which was ridiculous, thought Aline, because clearly that title belonged to Helen herself. Aline had never met anyone so full of life, so full of stories and so excited to get out into the world. She was completely enamoured, hanging on to every word the other girl said, completely unable to look away from her. Helen was the sun, and Aline was just caught in her orbit.

In other words, she was falling. Hard.

And she was absolutely going to get her heart broken if she didn’t pull herself together soon.

They stayed in the restaurant long after their food had been eaten and paid for, trading stories from back home. Helen heard about Beijing and Idris and what it was like having the actual _Consul_ for a mother. Aline heard about the time Ty tried to raise a family of raccoons in his room, and all his siblings teamed up to help him, until Julian got bitten and they had to call the silent brothers in case the raccoons were carrying diseases.

“But what happened to the raccoons?” said Aline as soon as she had managed to stop laughing.

“We released them into the wild. Ty keeps waiting for them to come back. He insists that the ones that go through our trash bins are different.”

“Well, if he spent that much time with them, he must be able to tell them apart from the rest.”

Helen laughed.

They didn’t end up leaving the restaurant until the late afternoon, and by that point there really wasn’t much point in splitting up anyway. They walked hand-in-hand out of the restaurant and out onto the busy streets of Rome. There were mundanes everywhere, cameras in hand, speaking in a variety of languages, most of them unfamiliar to the two girls. The sun was still high in the sky, reflecting off the white buildings and making Aline squint. It was hot, too. Uncomfortably hot. Idris didn’t get weather this intense, and Aline still wasn’t used to it.

Aline had lived in Rome for long enough now that the novelty of it had worn off somewhat, but seeing the city through Helen’s eyes made her feel like she was walking down its streets for the very first time. She had forgotten just how stunning the architecture was, how easy it was to just stand in front of a building and completely lose track of time as you admired it. She had forgotten how jarring it was to be completely surrounded by tourists, everyone just as enamoured with the city as you were. That feeling of blending into a crowd, knowing that there wasn’t a single person around you who had any idea who you were, let alone any expectations for you. There was something magical about being in a foreign country.

They passed a stand selling souvenirs - they were everywhere in the city - and Helen pulled her to a stop. Aline had never had much interest in the cheap trinkets being sold along every street, and tended to ignore these stands, but Helen immediately pounced on the display of postcards.

“I try to buy a few from every place I visit,” she explained, sifting through images of famous spots in Rome. “I keep one for myself and send the rest home. The kids love them.”

“That’s really sweet.”

Helen grinned. “I know it’s tacky.”

“It is,” Aline agreed. “But it’s cute.”

She moved over to look through the other souvenirs being sold at the stand. Lots of magnets and keychains. A few small toys. Mugs. T-shirts. Hats. Scarves. Nothing she had any use for, really. She tried to imagine herself sending one of these things back to her parents in Idris. They’d be confused, for sure. Neither of them would get the joke.

She looked back at where Helen was carefully picking out postcards, craning her neck to make sure she didn’t miss the ones at the top. Just looking at this girl made Aline’s heart rate rise and her breath catch. Maybe there was some appeal in wanting a physical reminder of a trip you’d taken, a place you’d visited.

A person you’d met.

A tiny smile began to play across her lips as she looked back down at the array of souvenirs in front of her. They were tacky and overpriced and very silly, but she could kind of see the appeal.

Somewhat on impulse, Aline snatched up a pair of bracelets, and rifled around in her pocket for a few euros. She had only brought enough cash for lunch and still needed to pay for dinner, but they had agreed to split the bill instead of having Aline pay for the whole thing, so she should be able to make it last. With a glance at Helen, who was still distracted by her hunt for postcards, she paid for the bracelets and pocketed them.

Helen caught her just as she was stepping away from the vendor.

“Did you buy something?” she asked, clearly amused.

“Maybe.” She grinned. “Come on, I’ll show you later.”

Helen raised an eyebrow, and shuffled over to pay for her postcards. Once she had stuffed them into her purse, she took Aline’s hand, and let the shorter girl drag her down the street and into a narrow alley.

It was hard to find a quiet place in this city. Every street that didn’t lead to some famous tourist attraction seemed to be full of shops and annoying tourists. This particular alley was probably full of apartments, but it was quiet, and free of mundanes for the time being, and Aline could only hold back from kissing her date for so long.

She pulled Helen close, their hands clasped at their sides.

“Hey,” she said, looking up into the girl’s beautiful blue-green eyes.

“Rome is beautiful,” Helen breathed.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Helen grinned. Aline’s gaze fixed on her lips.

“You planning on showing me around?”

“Not really.”

Helen looped her arms casually over Aline’s shoulders and leaned down so her hair tickled Aline’s cheeks and created a sort of curtain around them. Aline could smell the sweat on her skin, mixed in with a pleasant, flowery scent that must be her perfume. Her mouth felt dry. She ran her hands up Helen’s back and, heart pounding, rose up on her tiptoes so she could-

Helen pulled back, a mischievous smile playing across her lips. “I’m not going to kiss you until you tell me what you bought at that shop.”

Aline rolled her eyes. Her whole body was buzzing with anticipation, and she was definitely blushing, but she reached into her pocket obediently.

“It’s extremely cheesy,” she warned the taller girl.

It was Helen’s turn to roll her eyes. “Aline,” she said. “I really don’t care how cheesy it is.”

She pulled out the bracelets and presented them to the other girl. They were cheap, beaded bracelets in the colours of the Italian flag. Each one had five white beads spelling out “ROMA” in the middle.

“Oh my god,” said Helen, giggling. “Those are cheesy.”

“Told you.”

She took one of the bracelets, and slid it onto her wrist. “I love it.”

And then she grabbed Aline by the front of her shirt and leaned down to kiss her.

The kiss was gentle and eager, and after a full day of staring at Helen’s mouth and resisting the urge to kiss her, it felt like Helen had just breathed air into her lungs. Aline gasped and rose up again, her hands gripping Helen’s waist for balance. She had spent a lot of time thinking about kissing Helen since they had first met, and even more so since their first kiss. She had wondered, many times, if that kiss had only felt the way it had because it had been their _first kiss_ , had been Aline’s first kiss with a girl. The butterflies in her stomach, the weakness in her knees, the way it had chased every thought from her mind so that the world had narrowed down to herself and Helen, the sense of _rightness_ , of everything clicking into place… was that just how everyone’s first kiss went? Had it really had anything to do with Helen?

But this kiss was anything but boring, and her body was reacting just as viscerally as it had last time. Helen’s lips were warm and soft and pliant against hers, and they tasted like chapstick and Aline would be perfectly happy to keep kissing her all night and potentially into the morning if it were possible. Helen sighed against her mouth and tilted her head as her hands knotted themselves in Aline’s t-shirt, pulling her closer. Aline was pretty sure she had just lost the ability to think.

She reached up to run her hands through blonde curls that were just as smooth and impossibly silky as she remembered them being. And they smelled like flowers, she thought dizzily. How fitting for a faerie girl. She was pulling Helen down, and pulling herself up, cursing the few centimetres of height that separated them as she kissed her back.

Screw dinner, really. Screw the restaurant. She could live off the taste of Helen’s lips and the smell of her shampoo for the rest of eternity.

They came up for air, gasping, their foreheads still pressed together, their mouths only a hair’s width apart. Aline could feel Helen’s breath against her mouth, feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest against hers.

Helen leaned down to close the distance between them, but their lips had only just reconnected when they were interrupted - quite rudely - by shouting in a language Aline didn’t recognize. They sprung apart, suddenly reminded of the fact that they were in public as their attention was pulled toward the white tourist - he must be a tourist, because he certainly wasn’t speaking Italian - who was clearly not particularly happy to have walked in on two women kissing in an alley.

Anger surged up in Aline. Sure, they were in a public place, but she was just trying to enjoy a perfect afternoon with the prettiest girl she had ever met. How dare this man interrupt them?

“Fuck off!” She yelled, her words echoing through the narrow alley. The man clearly didn’t speak English, but he got the gist of it, and turned around, yelling obscenities back at them.

Helen had her hand over her mouth, and she was laughing, watching the man leave.

“By the angel,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m great.” She gripped the other girl’s hips and pulled her closer. “Now, where were we?”

Helen giggled, placing her hands on Aline’s shoulders. “Should we take this somewhere more private?” she whispered seductively, looking down at her through long eyelashes.

“Nah.” Aline reached down to pull her stele out of her boot. “We’ve got runes for that.”

She didn’t have a chance to apply any glamour runes, though, because Helen was kissing her, and the rest of the world might as well have faded away. She gasped, her hands tightening on the other girl’s hips, and then she was pushing her backward, until Helen’s back slammed against the wall of a building, and Aline was pressing their bodies together, her thigh wedged between the other girl’s, her mouth sliding against Helen’s as they kissed.

They didn’t end up seeing much of Rome at all that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just really miss travelling and Italy in particular and this is how I cope.
> 
> I have no timeline for the publication of the next chapters, but will do my best to get them up soon, I guess.
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr!](https://bcarstairs.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating for this fic has changed! It's not super explicit, but there is a bit of drinking and sexual content in this chapter, so please be warned!

Helen’s lips tasted like sugar. Sugar and lemons and alcohol, and whatever else had gone into that bottle of Italian booze they’d picked up on their way back to the Institute. Whatever it was, it tasted incredible. Aline was properly drunk, her mouth sloppy and uncoordinated as she kissed her girlfriend with reckless enthusiasm, pushing her backward onto the bed they had been sharing for the last two weeks. Helen was grabbing at her clothing, pulling her down to her level. It took all of Aline’s concentration just to line up their bodies and kiss her girlfriend back without misplacing any of her limbs.

She felt cold hands on her back, underneath her t-shirt. Impatient, Aline broke away from Helen for just long enough to pull the thin material over her head, leaning back down to fit her lips to the other girl’s. Helen gasped. Her hands were back, moving up, up her spine until they reached the clasp of her bra, and Aline couldn’t hold back a moan as Helen slid her hands until the material.

Helen broke away then, panting. She was still fully clothed - tragically so - but the neckline of her dress was low enough to send heat rushing up to Aline’s face as she looked down at her. The other girl was blushing all the way down to her chest. Her golden-blonde hair was tangled and strewn over the pillow, her lips swollen. The half-braid she had worn all day was almost completely undone, held together with a single bobby pin.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Helen slurred.

“Why not?”

As far as Aline was concerned, nothing was more important than sex with Helen. Absolutely _nothing_. Sex with Helen was something she had only discovered a few wonderful days ago, and was quite determined to become a expert in as soon as possible. She had already made lots of progress.

Helen laughed breathlessly and looked up at the ceiling. She was beautiful like this, just as she was beautiful in literally every other situation. Aline could not look away.

“If we keep making out every time we’re alone together, we’ll never get anything done.”

“I see no problem with that.”

She leaned down to fit her mouth to Helen’s and felt her girlfriend smile, her hands moving up her back once again. She broke away, then, shaking her head.

“We leave for Prague _tomorrow_ , and we’ve made no progress on our itinerary.” 

Despite her protests, she helped Aline out of her bra and leaned up to kiss her properly, her hands moving around to her now bare chest. All thoughts of travel plans and Czech tourism flew out of Aline’s mind as she focused on kissing Helen, savouring the sweet taste of Italian alcohol on her mouth and the impossible silkiness of Helen’s hair between her fingers. Helen flipped them over so she was on top. Their kisses were drunk and uncoordinated and absolutely perfect. Aline’s hands slid up under Helen’s dress to run along her thighs.

Helen pulled back, just far enough that Aline could see right down the front of her dress. 

“We really should plan our trip,” she mumbled, sounding very much like she did not want to do anything other than make out with her girlfriend. Aline knew the feeling.

“Later.”

Helen giggled, then, still leaning over her. 

“We leave first thing in the morning.”

“We’ll figure it out when we get there.”

Helen rolled her eyes skyward and flipped right off of Aline. She smoothed down her dress as she got up and stumbled across the room, searching for her notebook. Aline sat up, but made no move to collect her clothes. If Helen insisted on wasting their alone time on travel planning, then Aline was going to respect that decision, but she was still going to remind her exactly what she was missing out on.

Helen turned around to face her, hair still mussed and dress sliding off one shoulder. Her gaze raked over Aline’s torso. One eyebrow curved up in amusement.

“So we’re doing this topless?”

“Yup.” Aline leaned back on her hands, her legs stretched out in front of her. She met Helen’s eyes, daring her to say something.

But Helen just shrugged. “I’m not complaining,” she said as she sat down across from Aline on the bed, placing her notebook in her lap. 

Aline didn’t really understand why this was so important to Helen. Why did they need to write down a full itinerary? What did it matter which cities they visited and which tourist attractions they saw? As far as Aline was concerned, they could go anywhere in the world and it would be the best place on Earth because they’d be together.

“Okay.” Helen looked up at her, blushed, and turned her gaze back to her notebook. “Right. So we’re leaving for Prague tomorrow. They’re expecting me there for a week, but I can probably shorten that if I want to. I’ve got a list of places I want to see after that. What about you?”

Aline just shrugged. “I’ll go wherever you go.”

Helen blushed again. The lone bobby pin was still hanging on by a single strand of hair, her braid almost completely undone. She still hadn’t straightened out her dress. Aline’s fingers ached to reach over and take it off completely.

“So there’s really nothing you want to do during our trip?” She sounded weirdly disappointed. Aline frowned.

“I just don’t see why this matters so much,” she admitted. “Whatever we do, we’ll have a great time.”

Helen bit her lip. She was tapping her pen against the notebook, clearly agitated. Aline waited for her to gather her thoughts.

“I just need it to be _perfect_ ,” she said at last.

“Why?”

“Because…" She sighed in obvious frustration. "If I get the chance to go somewhere amazing, or to see some famous tourist attraction, and I don’t do it, I might regret that for the rest of my life.”

Aline sat up properly, then, crossing her legs in front of her. She still wasn’t wearing a shirt. It definitely felt weird now that the conversation was turning serious. She watched Helen tuck her hair behind her ear, her other hand still fiddling with her pen.

“Helen.”

The other girl looked up. Her eyes fixed on Aline’s chest for a long moment, then quickly moved up to her face. She had the decency to at least look embarrassed about it.

“Do you really want to spend our vacation ticking items off a list?”

Helen bit her lip.

“We’re here to have _fun_ ,” she continued. “And that means doing what we want to do, when we feel like it. Not doing what we think we’re supposed to do.”

Helen’s mouth quirked up at the corners. Her gaze kept wandering down to Aline’s chest, clearly without meaning to, and her entire face was tinged pink. “I just don’t want to feel like I’ve wasted my trip.”

“You won’t have wasted it.”

“Even if I spend the whole thing locked in my room having sex with my girlfriend?”

“Definitely not then.”

“But we could do that anywhere.”

“Exactly.” Aline reached out to nudge her foot against Helen’s thigh. “How many couples can say they started their relationship by having sex in… however many countries we’re about to visit?”

Helen was smiling for real now. “Is that all you want to do on vacation?” she asked teasingly.

“Of course not.” Aline reached over to pluck the notebook and pen from her girlfriend’s hands and set them down on the bedside table. “I’ll tell you what,” she said, taking Helen’s hands in hers. “We’ll visit all the cities you want to see. We’ll write down a plan and everything. And once we get those cities, we’ll figure out what we want to do.”

Grinning, Helen leaned forward to press her lips to Aline’s, then drew back. “I think I can manage that,” she admitted.

But something was off. Aline could tell from the set of her shoulders, the way she was avoiding eye contact. She reached up to take that accursed bobby bin out of the other girl’s hair, tossing it away knowing perfectly well that she would probably never find it again, and twirled a finger through one of her curls.

She was _so_ pretty.

“We’ll have fun,” she promised.

“I know that,” said Helen. She sighed. “God, of course I know that. I just don’t know when I’ll get the chance to do this again.”

Aline kissed her again, slow and lingering, her hands sliding up Helen’s arms to cradle her face.

“We’ll get to do it again,” she promised in between kisses. “We have all the time in the world.”

Helen smiled against her lips. Finally, she pushed her back against the pillows. This, Aline thought, was more like it. This would never get old. Her mouth moved against Helen’s, the weight of Helen’s body over hers comforting and familiar and so, so exciting. Aline’s hands were already under the skirt of Helen’s dress, pushing it up to her shoulders, and Helen was pulling away so she could take it off and throw it across the room. Aline heard something crash. She couldn’t even be bothered to turn her head to look, not when Helen was still straddling her, smirking as she reached up to pull her tiny bralette over her head in one graceful motion and toss it away.

She stopped, then, breathing heavily. Her hair had somehow gotten messier, and it hung down just below her breasts, tangled and curly and fine as silk. Her lips were swollen and bright red, just slightly parted as she looked down at Aline. Her eyes darkened. She was absolutely breathtaking in her beauty, and Aline couldn’t figure out which part of her she wanted to touch most as she ran her hands up and down the other girl’s sides.

Their mouths collided again. Aline’s hands dipped down below Helen’s underwear, pushing away the last bit of clothing on the other girl just as Helen fumbled with the button of her jeans and slipped her fingers under the material.

Aline sank back against the pillows. She closed her eyes as Helen worked absolute magic with her fingers, not bothering to be quiet even though she knew there were people sleeping in the rooms on either side of her. 

Honestly, she didn’t even know what the occupants of this Institute thought of their relationship. Most of them were still suspicious of Helen because of her faerie heritage, and she didn’t get the impression they were particularly enthusiastic about women being in relationships with other women, either. As far as Aline could tell, everyone at the Institute was pretending she and Helen were just good friends who had sleepovers every night and liked to hold hands every time they went anywhere. Or maybe they actually believed that. Aline didn’t know, and she didn’t care.

Several minutes or hours or eternities later - Aline had lost track of time about three rounds in - they lay facing each other in bed, the covers pulled up to their waists. Helen had pulled her hair into a bun, but the shorter bits were already falling out, and Aline was playing with one of them, winding it around her index finger.

“I’ll miss Rome,” she admitted.

Helen’s face melted into a smile. “We had fun, didn’t we?”

“Yeah.” She knew they weren’t just talking about the city itself. Rome was beautiful, and charming, and it had been Aline’s home for a significant amount of time now, but now Rome was also the city that had brought Helen to her, the city in which she had experienced so many firsts. The city in which she had fallen in love for the first time.

 _In love_. She hadn’t said the word aloud yet. Not to Helen. She had thought it, though, so many times since their first date. Said it over and over again in her head. Whispered it into the air in the few moments she had had alone. It was such a simple word, for something that carried so much weight. She didn’t just like Helen, she wasn’t just attracted to her; she was _in love_ with her. Hopelessly, desperately in love.

In love with a girl. A girl who was half faerie.

In love with Helen.

Her phone buzzed on the bedside table. She ignored it.

“I was thinking Vienna after Prague,” Helen whispered. “It’s close by. Kind of.”

“Okay.” Aline couldn’t care less where they went, if she was being completely honest.

Helen grinned, as if reading her mind. “We’ll do Eastern Europe for a bit. How do you feel about Hungary? Belarus? Latvia?”

“They sound amazing.”

“Then we’ll circle around to the more Northern countries. Denmark. Norway. Sweden. We’ll go visit London - my family’s from there, but I’ve never been - then I want to go to Spain.”

“Sounds like a great plan.”

They descended into a comfortable silence. Helen’s hand was on her waist, now, her thumb tracing circles over her skin. Aline’s phone buzzed again. Then again.

“You going to get that?”

“It’s probably my mom again.”

Aline had finally broken the news about her relationship to her parents a few days ago. They were freaking out just a little bit, but not necessarily in a bad way. She was deliberately ignoring them.

Helen’s features softened in sympathy. “You should at least check.”

Reluctantly, Aline rolled over and grabbed her phone. The battery was dangerously low, but she didn’t have the energy to find a charger.

The messages hadn’t come from her mom. She frowned, and Helen must have seen something on her face because she propped herself up on one elbow and leaned over to see what she was looking at.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Alec,” Aline explained, typing out an answering text.

Helen’s nose wrinkled. “His vacation still cancelled?”

Aline nodded. “He seems pretty upset about it.”

She put her phone back on the table, knowing perfectly well that the battery was about to die and not really caring. She turned back around to face her girlfriend.

“Do you think there’s something else going on?” Helen asked tentatively.

“Yeah,” she admitted with a sigh, sinking back down into the bed. She could tell there was something Alec wasn’t telling her. There was no way he was this upset about the end of a vacation he hadn’t even been that enthusiastic about. But they weren’t close enough for her to feel comfortable asking about it.

“I hope they’re okay,” said Helen.

“Me too.”

She liked Alec, and she was invested in his relationship with Magnus. Alec had inspired her to come out. He’d helped her believe that relationships between Shadowhunters and downworlders were possible.

If he and Magnus didn’t work out…

But she and Helen weren’t Alec and Magnus. Not even close. There was no point in making comparisons. 

Helen was staring at her. This time, she was the one to reach up and wind her fingers around a lock of Aline’s short-cropped black hair. Her expression was unreadable, her gaze far away.

Aline almost wished they could spend all their time here, forget about the rest of their trip and their responsibilities. She had the sudden thought that if by some great misfortune they ever broke up, she would never be able to visit Rome again. This city would always be associated with Helen in her mind.

“Hey,” the other girl whispered, still playing with her hair. “I thought of another place we might want to visit.”

“Where?” Aline didn’t know how many times she had to explain to her girlfriend that she really didn’t care where they went, as long as they were together. At least once more, apparently.

Helen smiled softly.

“Los Angeles.”

Aline’s heart skipped a beat. She searched Helen’s face for any sign that this might be a joke, that this impossibly beautiful girl was messing with her somehow. But Helen’s gaze was unwavering, her expression perfectly serious.

“Really?”

Helen’s hand moved down to cradle her cheek. Aline could see every detail on her face, every freckle on her nose.

“I know it’s early,” she whispered, “and a lot can change in a few weeks, but when we’re done with our travel year, I want you to come home with me. Or I’ll go to Idris with you. I don’t care. I just don’t want to be away from you.”

She was blushing, and her words were halting, hesitant. She was nervous, Aline realized, incredulously. Nervous, when Aline herself had been thinking exactly the same thing for longer than she would care to admit.

Aline laughed, and leaned forward to press a quick kiss to the other girl’s lips.

“I love you,” she said. She hadn’t meant to say it -it had slipped out before she could think it through - but she wasn’t going to take it back. Not when she had been thinking it for so long.

“I love you, Helen,” she continued, “and I’ve told you before that I’d follow you anywhere. Of course I’ll go to Los Angeles with you.”

Helen looked just as shocked as Aline felt, but her surprise soon melted into a smile.

“I love you, too,” she said, laughing, and kissed her. “God, I love you so much. I can’t wait for you to meet the kids.”

She smiled into another kiss and rolled over so she was on top of Aline, the covers falling away and leaving them both very naked. Aline tilted her head and deepened the kiss, running her hands along Helen’s curves, her girlfriend’s form already so familiar to her after weeks of doing exactly this. This kiss wasn’t going anywhere - they were both too tired to go another round - but it was nice just to let their hands wander and their mouths explore, enjoying the feeling of being together in this moment.

Aline didn’t know if everyone felt this way about their first relationship, if she was being naive in assuming that she and Helen would stay together forever, but she was finding more and more these days that she just _didn’t care_. She knew how she felt, and how she felt was hopelessly in love with Helen Blackthorn.

She really hadn’t given the rest of their trip much thought, at least not beyond disappointment about leaving Rome and excitement about spending so much time with Helen, but now, for the first time, she considered what this would mean.

Seeing the world together. Visiting famous places with Helen by her side. It was stupidly romantic. 

And they were leaving tomorrow.

Without warning, she pulled away, suddenly horror-struck.

“What is it?”

“Oh my god.”

There was no way they had been this reckless. Surely she was making things up. Right?

“Oh my god, Helen, we’re leaving tomorrow and we haven’t even started packing.”

For a moment, Helen’s face was a mask of confusion, her brows knitted together. Then her eyes widened, and she flung herself off of Aline, pushing the covers aside. Aline sat up. She took in the room as if seeing it for the first time.

Their stuff was _everywhere._

Aline had been living here for a considerable amount of time at this point, so she had had more than enough time to unpack her things, utilizing every shelf and drawer and effectively spreading her belongings throughout the small space. She had also had time to acquire quite a lot of new things. Packing up her stuff alone would take hours. The task should have been much easier for Helen, who had moved in only a week ago and technically didn’t even live in this room, but Helen had yet to set foot in the space that had been set aside for her by the head of the Rome Institute, and had very quickly made herself at home here. She certainly had her work cut out for her as well.

They had about twelve hours to pack up their things.

And they were still both quite drunk.

Their eyes met, their expressions equally horrified. After a moment of stunned silence, they both broke out into peals of laughter.

They were already _terrible_ at this.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr!](https://bcarstairs.tumblr.com/)


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